I have a Maxtor EHD that it set up to automatically back up my files so as things are added (sg goodies of course) it automatically copies to my ehd. Simple enough. This morning I have an error screen that says:

"Either the partition on the external drive is not recognized or the external drive has not partition. Do you want to create one? WARNING: Formatting will erase all data on your ehd. Click "format" to begin the process. If not, hit cancel"

Ok-I get this gist of this. I assume since it is telling me this I should go ahead and format, then back up again?

You may not need to. Have you tried unplugging the EHD, rebooting and then plug it back in and see if the computer will see it.

If you do reformat you will lose everything on it so make sure you have everything on it backed up somewhere else.

I will try this first Dee, thanks for the suggestion. Everything is on my computer, so I won't lose anything. (of course, I will triple check this again!!) So, if I unplug and reboot-how will I know if I have the same error? I mean, will it automatically show up the error, or only when it backs up again? Sorry if that didn't make sense!

I would start here, http://www.seagate.c...ing_assistance/, on the Seagate/Maxtor troubleshooting page, and follow through carefully before doing anything else, and before using the EHD for long. I don't know your model; they often have a downloadable tool that can run diagnostics, or it may be built in.

If there error doesn't go away, the drive is dying. You should look for your receipts and warranty information in that case, and do not put anything important on it.

If it dies too soon, and you need content from it, there are companies that can often recover most/all of the data. Hope this helps.

(I worked for 18 years developing, testing and working with disk drives.)